


Chasing the Downward Horizon

by beetle



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, And Reyes is diving for bottom, Angst, Angst and Feels, Askew Morality, But it ain't healing, But way less in comparison, Confessional Sex, Confessions, Dubious Morality, Dysfunctional Relationships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Instability, Emotional Manipulation, Father-Son Relationship, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Manipulative Relationship, Mental Instability, Mentions of Alec Ryder/Ellen Ryder, No Healing Cock, No Underage Sex, Past Character Death, Past Consenting Incestuous Relationship Mentioned, Past Incest, Past Relationship(s), Post-Charlatan Reveal, Reyes is too, Rough Sex, Scott IS a quagmire, Scott is EXTREMELY fucked up, Smut, Well there's cock, tagging is exhausting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2019-01-04 05:45:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12162702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: Oscar Wilde famously said: “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” Had he ever met Scott Ryder, he might have worded it a bit differently. Perhaps: “Some of us are among the stars . . . and still we wallow in the gutter.”Something to that effect.Or: Scott Ryder is an absolute quagmire. But Reyes Vidal isn’t sinking to bottom . . . he’sdivingthere, and smiling all the way down.





	Chasing the Downward Horizon

**Author's Note:**

> Notes/Warnings: AU. Dark. Flawed and damaged individuals with askew moral compasses. Bleak, obsessive, twisted-true love. Fractured fairytale romance between main pairing. Mentions of past incest— _not_ romanticized or glamorized—between consenting and messed-up adults. Hopeful-ish ending, but don’t expect healing, as such.

 

 

“I wasn’t abused as a child, or anything,” the Pathfinder says during the eternal, sleepy-silent afterglow of their first time together. His voice is low and flat. Too calm and lacking in fucks given to be anything but fake. This eye-of-the-maelstrom _stillness_ , by its very tranquility, hints at the no doubt . . . awry and cyclonic state of Ryder’s psyche. He is, at the very least, keyed-up and nervous and _rattled_. “I mean, I wasn’t molested by my father.”

 

That one man’s affect can be so many light-years away from his actual state of mind is one of many intriguing cognitive dissonances that had and has and will probably _always_ draw Reyes Vidal’s attention and interest like a moth to a flame.

 

“Hmm,” Reyes hums noncommittally, half-asleep, but entirely awake, nonetheless. Even at his most tired and unobservant, when his surroundings are safe and innocuous, part of Reyes Vidal’s mind is always making notes. Filing away intel for later consideration and use.

 

Now, he holds Ryder a bit tighter, in simple acknowledgement that Ryder’s spoken, not in reaction to the statement, itself. Reyes trusts Ryder to recognize that difference, even after so short a time in each other’s company. The Pathfinder’s gameface is open and honest and uncomplicated. And it’s the best game-face Reyes has ever seen, including the one that regards him from the mirror, on occasion. But it’s still just a practiced and near-flawless front. And, having such a front of his own, if anyone can parse Reyes’ gameface—which is mostly inflection and body-language, and shiftings of smirk and swagger—to the very heart of the meaning hiding behind it, it’s Ryder.

 

“I wasn’t molested by my father,” Ryder still insists, his voice almost inaudibly tighter, tenser, and miserable, as if Reyes has made some puritanical value-judgment. The temptation to needle the Pathfinder is, as ever, great. But even Reyes Vidal knows when to back off. That picking and choosing one’s moments is the better part of true discretion.

 

“Of course, not, Ryder.” Reyes hums again, inhaling Ryder’s scent. He always smells like iron and sweat, earth and wind. And, now, like expensive whisky and even more expensive cologne, too. Like _Reyes_. That’s the sort of maybe-ephemeral/maybe-not fact that makes Reyes smile and relax as he envelops Ryder in his embrace. His arms are a gentle, possessive, weighty cage to corral and keep the Pathfinder, for this little while.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“You don’t _have_ to be, but if it makes you feel better. . . .”

 

Ryder snorts bitterly, his body nonetheless melting back against and in Reyes’s arms. Reyes knows that the Pathfinder could kill him with little more than a shift in position and the will to end a life, even if one doesn’t take into account those impressive and frightening biotics of his. But Ryder would _never_ hurt him and that’s one of few things of which Reyes is beyond certain. In a way that doesn’t even allow him to prepare a contingency in case the Pathfinder’s affections prove fickle, or even false.

 

It would, Reyes knows, be easier to plan for gravity suddenly reversing its own eternal rules, than to plan for any sort of betrayal from _Scott Ryder_. His personality and emotional-camouflage aside, Ryder is the most earnest person Reyes has ever known, and he trusts the man’s honesty and integrity to be utterly character-consistent until the collapse of the universe.

 

“Okay, putting aside the fact that I repeatedly called you _Daddy_ while you fucked the spleen outta me, I feel like I should apologize for calling you anyone _other_ than . . . who you are. I don’t want you to think—” Ryder pauses and groans softly. “I _don’t_ want you to think that I’m pretending you’re . . . _my father_ while you fuck me.”

 

Which is a subtly _different_ statement than: _I_ am not _pretending you’re my father while you fuck me._

 

And, as ever he has, Reyes notes that difference, and files it away for later consideration and use, with the addendum of: _Ryder_ knows _how to lie, but_ doesn’t _. Ryder_ dislikes _prevaricating, but_ will.

 

“If you’re . . . worried about offending me, Ryder, you needn’t be,” Reyes rumbles, only surfacing enough to speak coherently, but not enough to clear the sleepy burr from his voice. Ryder has something on his chest and is being cagey, but unusually candid about it. The only way he’ll continue to do so is if he thinks Reyes is perhaps past being wakeful enough to really hear or retain what’s being said. “Likewise, if you’re concerned that I’m . . . judging you or jumping to some as-yet-baseless conclusions, you needn’t worry about that either.”

 

“It won’t happen again,” Ryder swears, grim and still tight-tight-tight. He sounds almost as if he’s near tears. Reyes finds that dismaying, to say the least, but his own gameface is arc-welded on, even in the shadowy-lax borderlands of sleep.

 

“Go to sleep, Ryder,” he suggests, lazily nuzzling the other man’s nape. As his own body shifts slightly and settles, he slides out of Ryder’s clutching-hot body, soft enough, at last, to do so. Ryder hisses and groans and swears, and Reyes smirks a little. He’s got length and girth that are above average enough that this response to him pulling out is . . . far from unusual. “Go to sleep, and don’t make promises I’m not asking you to keep.”

 

“Reyes,” Ryder says, his voice more tense and miserable than ever, to the point that even his body is starting to reflect that tension and misery.

 

“This is a _lovely_ afterglow, and on the heels of possibly the best sex of my varied life. I’m hoping you feel the same—”

 

“ _I do_ ,” Ryder murmurs, still miserable, but earnest, too. Not the camouflage-honesty, but something raw and desperate and almost . . . angry.

 

“Good. Then let’s enjoy the moment, and if you’re still feeling . . . confessional in the morning, _I promise_ I’ll gladly hear whatever you wish to tell me with an open mind.”

 

“I’m _sorry_ ,” Ryder says again, raw-angry-teary. Reyes understands with compassion born of burgeoning, but strong fondness— _affection_ —that Ryder’s not apologizing to _him_ , this time. “I’m _so_ sorry.”

 

“It’s okay, Scott,” Reyes says, for once uncertain if he’s lying or not. The only one who could tell him for sure is a man who’s more than a year dead on Habitat 7. And anyway, Reyes would only take reassurances from _that_ man with a large grain of salt. “Go to sleep, now, and we’ll talk about it in the morning.”

 

Ryder doesn’t say anything else after that, though he’s wakeful and will be well after Reyes has drifted off on a wave of affection and endorphins powerful enough to take down a bull-elephant.

 

And in the morning, they _don’t_ talk about it. Or anything else, since both Ryder and the _Tempest_ are long gone from port when Reyes wakes just before noon.

 

#

 

The second time they fuck, it’s not in Reyes’ quarters on Kadara and not—as it almost _was_ , despite their nearby audience and the very-recent assassination of Sloane Kelly—in that cave at Sulfur Springs. It’s on the _Tempest_.

 

Ryder’s calmer than ever, even despite the heated, hungry promise of the kissing and groping in the cave. By the time they’ve both been debriefed over secure comms by the Nexus poohbahs, and the framework for future dealings with the Initiative has been laid down, Reyes is anxious and desperate in a way even his unflappable and practiced gameface can’t quite hide. Just Ryder’s blandly benevolent gazes and hapless-honest smiles— _yes_ , it’s personality-camouflage, but on some level, it’s also the heart of who Ryder is, or once was, or tries to be—set a fire in Reyes’s blood, balls, and being.

 

After near-painful rounds of pleasantries with Ryder’s crew as they move through Ryder's impressive ship—though their eyes tick to Reyes frequently, none of them ask why he’s still hanging around their Pathfinder like a stench, let alone still on the ship at all—the doors to Ryder’s quarters close behind them, fast and smooth.

 

And just in time for Reyes to slam Ryder against them, pin him hard, and grind against him with an affectionate, but insistent lack of tenderness.

 

“Reyes . . . Reyes, _please_ ,” Ryder is panting around Reyes’s tongue in his mouth and as Reyes clamps down on his hips. Reyes slams into him hard, driving the wind and a long, snickering yowl from the other man’s bared throat. Then he laughs when Ryder’s head thunks back against the door, and latches onto a prominent, bobbing Adam’s apple with heated, hasty lips. Sucks hickeys around the throb of Ryder’s elevated pulse.

 

It’s not long before Ryder’s strong thighs are locked tight around Reyes’ hips and Reyes is hefting the shorter, but sturdy man as he moves them deeper into the roomy, strangely sterile quarters.

 

“No, no . . . right here,” Ryder gasps as Reyes is about to pass behind the low sofa, en route to the bed he can see just beyond a wide entryway. Reyes licks a slow, lingering stripe up Ryder’s throat that causes a desperate whimper. Then he leans back and meets Ryder’s half-lidded, blown-pupils gaze.

 

“You want us to fuck on _this_ sofa?” At second glance, it looks even more narrow and uncomfortable than it had at the first. And it's a hideous color, to boot.

 

Ryder huffs a laugh and releases Reyes’ hips from the possessive clutch of his thighs. His dark eyes are wide and endless, like deep vacuum, minus an overlaid field of stars. “No, I want you to bend me over the _back_ of this sofa and make me scream till I come . . . then keep making me come till I _scream_.”

 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Reyes exhales, capturing Ryder’s pretty, plush, smiling mouth. Ryder may smell like iron and earth, of foundations and structure and stability. But he tastes like wind and wildness . . . like something ineffably bittersweet and layered, for all that his more put-on, obvious sweetness is a one-note song. “That . . . _that_ I can do, Pathfinder. It would be my _pleasure_.”

 

Ryder smirks, his mouth a wet, sin-red curve that promises such a profusion and entanglement of submissiveness and wickedness, Reyes is already in the midst of complying—has Ryder spun around and bent over the back of the sofa, trousers and shorts yanked down, and left in a forgotten pile around Ryder’s dusty boots—with two saliva-slick fingers pushing into Ryder’s twitchy-tight-hot hole, before he thinks to ask: “Lube?”

 

“Hmm . . . sure, somewhere around here? If you’re, _ahhhh_ , worried about dick-chafe. . . ?”

 

Reyes sighs wistfully, entranced as he watches Ryder’s puffy, pink pucker take his fingers as if hungering for and hastening him toward the main-show. And, of course, Reyes, himself, is so hard, he’s fairly sure that he’s going to come before he even gets his fly open, never mind actually fucking Ryder at all, or for any length of time.

 

“Aren’t _you_ worried about . . . well, let’s call it _discomfort_? I’m . . . not _circus sideshow_ -huge, but you probably _don’t_ want to take me without lube.”

 

“ _Wow_ , you’re not making a convincing argument for the lube, at all, Mr. Vidal.” Ryder laughs, squirming and clenching around Reyes’s seeking fingers. A startled-relieved exclamation that’s not quite Reyes’ name sounds a minute later and he smiles, working Ryder’s spot ruthlessly, while imagining what taking Ryder without lube would feel like for both of them.

 

And though the idea is far too tempting, Reyes knows from experience that going completely commando during anal sex is almost always a regrettable experience for the recipient.

 

“Ryder,” he murmurs, pressing himself close against Ryder’s body, over his back, and kissing the right side of his neck. Ryder whimpers again, then shivers.

 

“Seriously, I’ve done it before. Taken cock dry, that is. Well, but for, uh, spit, or . . . or, uh . . . my own come, sometimes. So, don’t worry. If you wanna do it that way, that’s . . . I would, uh . . . I wouldn’t have an issue with that. Never have,” he adds, meek and restrained and low. “Maybe I . . . maybe I even _prefer_ it that way.”

 

Which, for some reason, shorts out Reyes’ brain. Even the part that’s always working. His psyche is a fuzz of lust so hot and consuming, that every last bit of his reason beyond getting himself into Ryder’s body is muted and eclipsed.

 

Or at least, that’s what he tells himself, with more or less credulity, later. After Ryder comes hard, shouting and babbling, into Reyes’s hand. After Reyes singlehandedly struggles his own trousers and boxers down, and slicks himself with Ryder’s come with grit-toothed efficiency. After he’s removed the three fingers of his left hand from Ryder’s swollen-twitching hole and shoved the first two fingers of his come-slippery right hand in. After Ryder’s surprised, winded grunts turn into gasps and pleas for _more_ and _harder_ and _now_.

 

After Reyes all but rips his fingers free of Ryder once more and replaces them with his cock in one sharp, hard thrust that makes them both cry out: Reyes with a diaphragm-deep groan of relief and Ryder with a wavering, near-scream, that, as Reyes sets up a punitive, brutal pace, becomes soft, shamed sobs of pleasure/pain, want/need, and satiation/desperation.

 

Reyes is still gritting his teeth a tortuous eternity later. Ryder’s tight and tense, and his body grips Reyes’ cock as if trying to subsume it. And while come is a better lubricant than just spit, it’s not quite as easing as actual lube. Reyes knows that later, they’ll _both_ regret letting their desires and fantasies and pathologies goad them into this, but for the moment, he doesn’t care. For the moment, it feels . . . _amazing_. It hurts and is uncomfortable, and it’s . . . better than _anything_ Reyes has ever known with anyone else.

 

He doesn’t even have the presence of mind to try to make it good for Ryder, beyond giving the other man the kind of raw, uneasy, benevolent hate-fuck he so clearly needs and wants. Sometimes, Ryder’s sobs have tiny, breathless screams mixed in, and those _might_ indicate (accidental) prostate stimulation, direct or otherwise. Reyes doesn’t know. Doesn’t know if Ryder’s hard again—though, he probably is, since one delightful fact Reyes had learned from their first assignation, is that what Ryder lacks in stamina, he makes up for in enviably nonexistent refractory time—and doesn’t even know how close to the edge his _own_ body is.

 

He feels like he could go forever.

 

He feels like he could come at any second.

 

He’s soaked in sweat. His shirt is clinging and damp, as is Ryder’s. The universe is silent but for the pervasive, near-inaudible standby-hum of the _Tempest's_ mass effect drive and their harsh panting. Ryder's hips are slippery under Reyes’ clamping, possessive hands. The frantic-constant sound of their bodies coming together is wet and slapping and inelegant.

 

At some point, Ryder’s sobs and screams become breathless eggings-on: _Goooood . . . so good, please, Daddy, harder, now, Daddy, please, God, yes, more, YES, DADDY. . . ._

 

Just like the first time. And that final word is soon the _only_ word, other than _yes_. And it rings in Reyes’ ears like a church bell. It’s so loud inside his head, rendered reverent and mythopoetic in Ryder’s achingly earnest and needy voice, that Reyes doesn’t even realize that Ryder’s coming again—who knows how many times he already has? It’s not at all difficult to get Ryder off hard and fast, and Reyes has known _this_ from shortly after the night of Sloane Kelly's party—until the reverberating _Daddy_ takes on even more dimension and deification.

 

Because Ryder’s shouting it at the top of his lungs in a voice that’s cracking and broken and _delicious_ in its despairing wantonness.

 

His body clamps down on Reyes so tight and hard, _Reyes_ also comes like he’s the one who’s had a climax ruthlessly fucked out of him. He drives himself into Ryder hard and deep and without rhythm, relentless and gasping as he strives for Ryder’s core . . . for that place where the part of Ryder that’s maybe _always_ shouting _Daddy_ when it comes—and maybe always will be—haunts and hovers, waiting for any opportunity to express its outré needs.

 

By the time Reyes achieves cogency once more, he’s slumped over Ryder’s broad, strong back, his face pressed into Ryder’s messy-shaggy-shiny, cinnamon-colored hair. It smells, however, _not_ of cinnamon, but of something coffee-rich and _dark_ , and Reyes finds that pleasantly jarring. He nuzzles Ryder’s hair and rumbles contentedly, shifting and thrusting his half-hard cock lazily, slowly, gently . . . deep then shallow, deep then shallow. It feels nice. Right. Slippery-wet and messy-warm. And right.

 

Ryder whimpers and hisses and hums. He sounds sated and sleepy, and doesn’t seem to mind most of Reyes’ dead-weight on him.

 

When Reyes nuzzles Ryder’s ear though, feather-light and fond, Ryder tenses up.

 

“You . . . you don’t have to,” he says, his voice hoarse and reedy, from shouting and sobbing. “You shouldn’t. I . . . don’t expect or deserve it. The comfort. The tenderness.”

 

“I disagree,” Reyes purrs and doesn’t stop his nuzzling one bit. “And whether or not you _deserve_ it, I feel like _giving_ it. And that’s . . . a rarity for me, Ryder, so allow me this, if only as an indulgence and kindness to me.”

 

“I _don’t_ want your pity.”

 

“If I _pitied_ you, Scott, I wouldn’t want you nearly so much.”

 

No reply for several minutes, during which Ryder’s body tenses and relaxes several times, also moving and meeting Reyes’ unhurried thrusts.

 

“Why haven’t you run screaming in the other direction?” the Pathfinder finally demands, his voice a rough croak of held-back tears and abject helplessness. “You wouldn’t be the first.”

 

“And _why_ would I run away from _you_? You are . . . gorgeous and complex and delightful. _And_ you’re an intense and divine lay, as well. I’m many things, but _never_ wasteful of gifts from Providence, Herself. Nor am I a fool.”

 

“I _wasn’t_ molested by my father,” Ryder grits out as if admitting and explaining something obvious yet shameful.

 

“So you’ve said, Ryder. I heard you the first few times.”

 

“Clearly you didn’t.” Ryder barks a laugh and turns his head toward Reyes, as if hoping for a kiss. But when Reyes tries to oblige him, Ryder turns away just enough to make it obvious that kisses aren’t his aim. “Reyes . . . _I wasn’t molested by my father_.”

 

And despite his iffy-focus and lusty distraction, Reyes notes another difference— _finally_ —this one more subtle than Ryder’s others, but real. Implacable and _heavy_ and spelled-out, at last.

 

Ryder hasn’t been saying: “I _wasn’t_ molested by my father.”

 

Ryder’s been saying: “I wasn’t _molested_ by my father.”

 

Reyes has, unusually, and due to his own natural, but still inexcusably _inaccurate_ conclusion-jumping, been hearing Scott Ryder all wrong for a while. And if in this sense, then in how many others?

 

He closes his eyes and presses his face to Ryder’s coffee-smelling nape. The hair there is damp and silken and soft . . . as bittersweet, pure, and sad as everything else about Ryder.

 

“I see,” Reyes murmurs, and Ryder barks that laugh again, empty and embarrassed and hopeless.

 

“Took ya long enough,” he quips, flat and angry and sad. “I was starting to revise my opinion of your famed cleverness.”

 

“How . . . how old were you when the . . . sexual relationship with your father started, Scott?”

 

Ryder twitches, nervous and irritable. “Not quite twenty? Or maybe just turned?” Another twitch. “Mom was already sick, in and out of the hospital. Sara was going to pieces and throwing herself at anyone who’d have her. Dad was . . . _himself_ , like always, only . . . _extra_. Stoic and cold and buttoned-up. But one night . . . one night, after Mom’d shooed us out of her hospital room, we went home. Started drinking and brooding together. It was the only activity we could share without nearly coming to blows—we once almost got into a fist fight over re-sanding and refinishing the back deck when I was seventeen—and I just . . . lost my mind? Or . . . just stopped caring. Did something I knew _was_ wrong and had always known would be wrong because I’d been thinking about it and _wanting it_ since I was thirteen. But that night . . . right and wrong didn’t seem to matter. Nothing did or had for a while. Everything was falling apart and . . . I decided to go after what I’d always wanted. And Dad. . . .” Ryder huffs out a soundless laugh. “He didn’t stop me. Not from kissing him or touching him or climbing into his lap or . . . I kept pushing and pushing, _sure_ he’d stop me at some point. But he never did. He never did. And after a while, he wasn’t just not-stopping-me, but . . . actively taking part.”

 

Ryder falls silent, his breathing deep and shaking and measured. “I never kidded myself about it, y’know? I’m sane enough to know _exactly how fucked in the head_ I am. I _know_. I wasn’t abused, or confused, or in-love, or suffering from extreme hero-worship. Didn’t want a father-figure for kink and control. I just wanted _him_. End of story. And I _got_ him. And I kept goin’ back for _more_. Even when he pushed me away, I kept at him—Ryders don’t say _die_ , don’t give up!—even when the only person who hated me more than him was, in fact, _me_. I just . . . refused to stop. Nothing mattered but getting, taking, and having him the way I'd always wanted, for as long as I could. And I knew it wouldn’t be forever, but I was willing to settle for a lot less than that. Another awesome Ryder-trait Dad passed on to me, I suppose.”

 

Reyes’ hands tighten on Ryder’s hips. He’s mildly startled, semi-confounded, but not at all disgusted. Nor is he especially prurient for or keen on details about this unexpected rival for his lover’s affections. But Ryder’s speaking again. _Needs_ to speak, it’s clear. And _Reyes needs_ , with sudden and deep pangs, to give Ryder whatever _he_ needs.

 

“At first, while I was still pretending right and wrong _mattered_ to me when it came to him, I told myself that it was _only_ wrong if we didn’t eventually _stop_. That _eventually_ he’d come to his senses—since I’d apparently lost mine—and fucking _end it_. I _longed_ for that day even as I feared and dreaded it. And I knew it’d come, sooner, rather than later, because he was always so strong. Always did _the right thing_.”

 

Reyes doesn’t _have_ to ask the next question. He already knows the answer. But Ryder _needs_ to be asked. To confess. To lay himself bare. “And . . . when did he finally end it?”

 

Another harsh bark of a laugh. “He didn’t. Habitat 7 did.” Ryder shudders. “Or maybe . . . maybe that’s why he . . . maybe that was the only way out for him. Maybe dying was the only way he thought he could get away from the fucking _quagmire_ I’d sunk us into. The quagmire I _was, and am_.”

 

And even though Ryder is silent and still, but for the occasional shake or shudder, Reyes knows he’s weeping. Deeply.

 

“Ryder . . . Scott. . . .”

 

“I don’t know what I am, Reyes. What kinda horrible person would drive their own _father_ to such an extreme escape? I just . . . I dunno what that makes me,” Ryder says in a voice that belies the weeping. It’s steady and strong again, the way it almost always is. But bitter, too. “Only, I guess I _do_ know, huh? The kinda scumbag who seduces his vulnerable father while his loving, kind, and _wonderful_ mother is fighting for her life. Who runs his father into the fucking _ground_ to climb in his pants at every opportunity. Who doesn’t let things like his mother’s worsening condition and his sister’s slow-motion dissolution stop him from taking advantage of moments of weakness to get his sick needs met. Doesn’t let his father’s begging him to _stay away_ stop him from _always_ getting far too close. Doesn’t even pause to reflect for an entire _day_ after his mother’s funeral. Just corners his grieving father in the kitchen and reestablishes the fucked-up status-quo that’d been so _rudely_ interrupted by his mother’s final, painful days.” With a shuddering inhale, Ryder shakes his head. “So, yeah, scratch that lie. I _know_ what kinda person I am, Reyes, and . . . I wouldn’t blame you _at all_ for getting out while you still can.”

 

“Look, Ryder—”

 

“I’m _wrong_ , Reyes.” Ryder sounds so tired and deflated and as if he’s at last given up. That, more than anything, is alarming and wrong to _Reyes_. It makes him clutch at Ryder tighter. “I’m messed up, fucked up, and _wrong_. I’m defective in a way that I _can’t_ fix, and wouldn’t have even _tried_ to fix or change or _fight,_ if my father were still alive to feed my needs. He had to _die_ to get away from me. For me to _let go of him_. _That’s_ who I am and how I _love_. Unhealthy, no-holds-barred _obsession_ is the _best_ you can expect of me, if you wanna pursue any kind of . . . romantic relationship. At worst . . . most likely, I’ll _always_ be calling you _Daddy_ while you fuck me, and searching you for the bits and glimpses and similarities between the two of you that I can’t help but be drawn to. _I’m wrong_.” Chuckling weakly, his body sags a bit over the top of the sofa. “That’s . . . it. I accept that and embrace it, in spite of the consequences. Regardless of the destruction and misery it’s brought to everyone I love. And I have _no interest_ in being different, or _right_. I will _never_ be those things. Never be better than what I _am_. Do you _get that_? Are you _hearing me_?”

 

“I . . . yes.” Reyes sighs again, needing some time to ponder and consider, but knowing he won’t get time or a chance to sort himself out until after he’s made some decision and spoken. _Acted_. Made a choice he may never get to take back. “I hear you and I understand, now, Ryder. My apologies for . . . mishearing your truth even as you told it to me.”

 

Ryder’s response is laughing, weary, and rueful. “Ah, don’t apologize for _not_ being so fucked in the head that your psyche tried to see me in _normal people-terms_. _You’re_ not the bad-guy, here, Reyes. Not the one who should be apologizing.”

 

“ _Apologies_ aren’t even _close_ to what I want from you, Ryder. Nor you from me,” Reyes says, sardonic and dry as ever, and with amusement that’s aimed entirely at himself. He’s used to having to run on instinct in his professional life. It’s what keeps him alive, more often than it doesn’t. But he tends to avoid it in his personal life. To avoid _any_ entanglement that he can’t plan and predict from heated, exhilarating beginning to tumultuous, acrimonious end.

 

 _Right now_ , though, he’s on a tight-rope and there’s no safety net. Also, he has no tight-rope training to fall back on.

 

Despite that, he takes his first step out onto the high-wire and tries to center himself.

 

“If you’re gonna go, do it now. Don’t . . . draw it out,” Ryder mumbles, his voice exhausted beyond inflection. And Reyes opens his mouth to say . . . whatever is in him to say. He casts about for the balance and certainty required to guide his next step out on the wire.

 

Several minutes pass before he closes his mouth for the final, but not the first time. He straightens up and settles one hand on Ryder’s sweat-soaked back, and they both shiver from the chilly-cling of the cloth and from the branding-heat of the touch. Reyes’ other hand clenches on Ryder’s hip and he takes a second step forward on the rope. Beyond all reason, he's certain, at last, of his footing. He knows exactly what sort of affirmative response and action they both need from him.

 

“Reyes?” Ryder asks with hesitant, naked hope as Reyes pulls out just enough that Ryder moans and gasps, then squeaks and cries out when Reyes drives his now two-thirds hard cock into claiming, ever-hungry heat and softness. _This time_ , Reyes detaches from the proceedings a bit, consciously and calculatedly setting up a rhythm that leaves no room for thought—not on Ryder’s end of their coupling—or anything other than the honest and earnest admission of Ryder's needs and wants. Needs and wants that Ryder is _still_ trying to curb and bury, and which Reyes is growing addicted to stoking and uncovering.

 

It isn’t long before Reyes’ hand has meandered up to Ryder’s neck to grip and squeeze. This, too, is sheer instinct, but a good one. A _right_ one, for the way Ryder groans from his _gut and soul_ , and arches up with achingly gorgeous and _desperately_ _unadulterated_ submission.

 

The way he _wails_ . . . fiercely, like a banshee staking its claim and territory.

 

“ _Please_ ,” Ryder finally sobs out, small and soft, and filled with a hope that’s so untainted and pure and naked, that it makes Reyes’ heart twist and burn in his chest, even as lust twists and burns in his balls. “ _Please, Daddy_.”

 

Reyes leans down to whisper in Ryder’s ear. He knows the words they _both_ need, and feels as if deep down, he always has. That his _whole life_ he’s known the right words . . . and has just been waiting for the person for whom those words were meant. Waiting for him to . . . finally reveal himself.

 

And the revelation of who _Scott Ryder is_ and has always been deserves _nothing less_ than _everything Reyes can give_. Not the least of which is the truth at the heart of the Pathfinder’s own buried desires and an orgasm like a fucking supernova.

 

“You’re such a _good boy_ , Scott. Such a _perfect_ son,” Reyes says with a fatherly warmth he’s never heard with regards to himself, but has _seen_ lavished on other sons frequently enough and for long enough, that he no-longer even remembers what it tastes like to _envy_ that sort of paternal caring and approval. That doesn’t prevent him from leveling that caring and approval on Ryder with _every_ ounce of intensity and sincerity in him. And Ryder, already shivering and shaking and making small, needy whimper-gasps since _good boy_ , falls silent after Reyes’ next words: “Perfect like _this_ , perfect for _me_. You’ve made me so happy and _proud_. You’re the _best_. The _only_. _My_ only. _My boy_. And I want you to come for me.”

 

“Reyes—” Ryder moans, breathless and uncertain, quivering and tense. Reyes nips at Ryder’s auricle then runs his tongue along it, before straightening once more: for leverage _and_ to keep from being distracted by his own aching arousal. He’s surprised, but not, that some part of him needs this . . . _thing_ that’s happening between him and Ryder, almost as intensely as _Ryder_ needs it.

 

“ _Scotty_ ,” Reyes rumbles, low and commanding, and Ryder freezes in shock, a final, tiny _Daddy_ slipping out like another sob. “Keep being Daddy’s _good boy_ and come. Right now. _Come_.”

 

Reyes expects the way Ryder’s body tenses further. What he doesn’t expect is the sudden release, along with a primal, raw scream that shakes Ryder’s whole body and Reyes, too. This doesn’t prevent Reyes from keeping his rhythm through the orgasm that takes Ryder like a hurricane, huge and violent and merciless. Even the insane convulsion of every muscle in Ryder’s body, but especially the ones around Reyes, doesn’t stutter his rhythm. Neither does the random—initially small, but still startling—manifestations of Ryder’s biotics: knick-knacks and digital photo-frames jumping off shelves; the coffee table skidding away from the couch; the monitor on Ryder’s desk cracking down the center; the sudden field of near-tangible _force_ that **PULLS** and **HOLDS** Reyes’ body against Ryder’s . . . until, of course, at the height of his tempestuous release, that **HOLD** becomes so tight and intent, that Reyes not only can’t thrust or move, he can’t _breathe_ , either.

 

For eons, that’s all there is . . . terrible, wonderful _closeness_ and being **HELD** and kept. Living and dying—simultaneously, as in every other moment of life—but doing both with company, for the first time ever.

 

Reyes Vidal has never been not-alone in his entire life. He’s self-contained, despite his enjoyment of people, and is rarely _lonely_. But he has _never_ been not-alone. He’s never expected to be not-alone this side of the grave, or the other.

 

But in these eternal moments . . . he can _feel_ Ryder—feel _Scott_ —with him, around him, on him, _in_ him. Comprising him. He literally can’t tell where one of them ends and the other begins. Doesn’t recall what it is to be “Reyes” without “Scott” for contrast and relief.

 

He’s no longer alone, it’s true, but for the first time, he feels like he’s _one_ in all the ways that matter. Of what moment the eventual, inevitable _physical separation,_ in the face of having had _this_?

 

Reyes smiles and _comes_ , at the end of his asphyxiation in Scott’s localized mass effect field. He falls ecstatically into Scott, body, mind, and soul, like a rebel star into a spiraling-bright galactic center. His life doesn’t flash before his eyes in the moments before what he assumes to be his death. Even if it were to do so, this illuminated span is far too brilliant to see beyond. And Reyes Vidal _doesn't_ need a best-of montage to know when he’s dying. He can’t feel anything but that impending end and impossible pleasure, the latter of which is growing rapidly disembodied and almost entirely mental. Soon, the only feeling he can identify is a bliss that’s all _Scott-centric_ : coffee-dark sweetness, innocent-pure- _skewed_ yearning that knows no reason or boundaries . . . and hope and despair so towering and intertwined that they’ve become one and the same.

 

Reyes doesn’t know how long it’s been since his final breath was gasped, only that his lungs have forgotten how to go about their duty. And he is, he realizes, content with that and everything else, just as reality— _all of it_ —goes gently grey, then suddenly dark.

 

#

 

Consciousness is also sudden, when it returns, but not jarring. Merely . . . pleasantly unexpected. Like a free lunch.

 

He’s lying flat on his back in an unfamiliar bed. Pressed against him and throwing off reactor-like heat, a firm body, weighty and faintly redolent of coffee and iron, is still . . . but for deep, even breathing.

 

Reyes’ head aches and his throat feels raw. His mouth tastes like stale ozone and recycled air, and when he opens his tired eyes, they join the chorus of aches. But once they adjust—the bedroom he’s in is only ambiently lit . . . just enough that, were he so inclined, he could find his way out—he lets them drift to his left. Toward a slightly brighter patch of dimness.

 

Through the polarized, one way-glass of Scott’s large bedroom window, he can see the familiar environs and sluggish bustle of Kadara Port just before dawn.

 

Reyes smiles a little and doesn’t move, other than to close his eyes once more. Just before he drifts off again, Scott shifts closer, sighs, and snorts in his sleep. His face and breath are soft, and warm and trusting on Reyes’ bare chest, over his heart.

 

Even though his arm weighs at least ten thousand kilos, Reyes lifts it and drapes it around Scott’s also-bare shoulders, stroking a toned, relaxed bicep as he hugs Scott closer: possession and protection in one right-feeling gesture.

 

“ _Reyes_ ,” the unconscious Pathfinder burbles with dream-slurred contentment. Not _Daddy_.

 

 _Reyes_.

 

Reyes tries not to let his heart or subconscious jump to further conclusions. He’d already been wrong—horribly, almost disastrously so—mere hours earlier. He hopes to put at least a _little_ distance between that last time and the next.

 

And yet . . . hope is nothing, if not a tenacious bitch once her claws are hooked heart-deep. Even when those claws are embedded in the lump of ore that passes for _Reyes Vidal’s_ heart.

 

The only person Reyes has never been able to lie to on-purpose is himself. So, he knows now, beyond all doubt, that he’s utterly compromised. He might delude himself, yes, and easily, that he’s still in possession of _some semblance_ of his infamous pragmatism and enlightened self-interest. But he can’t _lie_. He _knows_ that his hopes and wants and needs are driving his realism and skepticism before them like dust before a determined broom. That any semblance of logic and sanity he once possessed where Scott Ryder is concerned are just that: a semblance. A seeming that he maintains to placate his ego and soothe his fears. But his heart knows he’s lost the privilege of clarity or objectivity regarding the damaged-pure Pathfinder in his arms. Perhaps lost that privilege forever.

 

And yet . . . and _yet_. . . .

 

Smirking, now, wry and self-mocking, Reyes sinks— _dives head-first_ into whatever rest he can claim before the _sturm und drang_ of what will undoubtedly be an interesting Morning After. The road ahead promises no reward or remuneration greater than unshakable companionship—no less cherished for being unexpected—and a sure dearth of boredom.

 

Comfort and ease, light-hearted familiarity and guiltless happiness . . . those will probably be quite thin on the ground, at least at first. At least . . . for a while. Perhaps a _long_ while, even. And yet. . . .

 

And yet.

 

 

END

**Author's Note:**

> The verdict?
> 
> [HMU/take me to task for warping Scott on the Tumbles](http://beetle-ships-it-all.tumblr.com), or below.


End file.
